It's been pretty chill here so far, minus an incident with a mouse, where apparently it was caught on sticky traps we put down, and then to make sure it was dead, my rooms smacked it against a wall several times then squished it just to make sure. Luckily I was out at the time and didn't have to be the one taking a hammer to the thing.
Some pictures of my apartment for those pushy - I mean delightfully interested-ones who've been asking (Cliff)
Also, a nice little note in my bathroom....if you didn't know, in China you have to throw your TP in a trashcan bc the plumbing here isn't up to international scratch.
On Monday I met with one of the guys who offered to hire me - he was really nice and offered to teach me Mandarin for free, but it was kind of a sketch proposal, and the pay for working for him was not that great, so I have a new Chinese friend, but probably not an employer.
However, he did treat me to lunch, at which I insisted he pick out the dishes, because my choices of Chinese food here have been limited to Chow Mein and Fried Rice. The first dish he told me was chicken, and actually didn't taste too bad at first, until I started chewing and discovered many small bones, at which time he added that I was eating chicken feet. I had a hard time finishing after that, but I took the bones out best I could, but not in the Chinese way, which is to simply dribble them out of your mouth and aim for the plate below you.
The rest of the meal consisted of millet and pumpkin soup (not too bad), shrimp (which he made me eat with the shells on - don't try it), some weird spicy noodles, some very delicious stringy veggies in broth, beef (but I didn't have much because he didn't know what part of the cow it was from), and some tiny mussels maybe? He didn't know the word for that in English either....yet another reason to be nervous. I think I'll be pre-screening the dish choices next time, but some of them surprised me in a good way, actually.
Uploaded some pics of the menu on facebook....for some reason they kept coming out sideways on here..
That night though, was awesome. I met up with Adrian and Fabi and her three French friends who were leaving to go back to France in the morning. We went to a restaurant called Southern Belle, owned by an American guy who perpetually chewed on a cigar. He pop-quizzed me on a bunch of US history and I pretty much failed all of it. Oops. We had cheeseburgers and dart contests and got pretty tipsy before going onto Mural for their Latin Night.
It was Latin Insanity. That, would actually be the better name for it. They had a live Mexican band and it seemed everyone in the joint knew how to salsa or mambo, or whatever the band was playing. One guy danced with me, and it was HARD. You have to concentrate on what your feet are doing, and despite having danced for many years, my coordination still isn't up to par. After a while he told me I needed a break. Whomp whomp.
I think I did better later though, because I danced with Juan Pablo, a Columbian guy I met through Fabi, and HE said I was the best American he ever danced with....although I'm pretty sure I accidentally punched him one time when he was spinning me. Oops.
Anyway, pretty much everyone except me was completely trashed, so it made for interesting dancing and interesting conversations. Sometimes it was just better to watch the people who clearly came here after using all week to practice their Latin moves, to shame the ones of us who were born really REALLY white. Needless to say, I'll be going back :)
Until next time, here is a Chinese picture to keep you entertained: apparently dogs, as they are first, are more dangerous than explosives. To the Chinese, at least.
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